Saturday, January 28, 2017

"THE GERMAN WORLD OF ANTHONY JACOB HENCKEL"

"The German World of Anthony Jacob Henckel"Written by: Daniel W. BlyPresented at the Reunion of The Reverend Anthony Jacob Henckel Family National AssociationOn June 18, 2016 in Staunton, Virginia

There was no nation of “Germany” before 1870, when
the modern German nation was finally created with the unification of a number
of smaller Germans states, by the state of Prussia.Before that there were German speaking
regions of central Europe which included parts of what are now France,
Switzerland, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and of course modern Germany.Many,
but not all these German speaking regions were part of the Holy Roman Empire, a loose confederation of personal domains that
was a remnant medieval feudalism. It consisted of over 300 virtually
independent states and cities of various sizes with rulers of various titles-
counts, princes, dukes, bishops and electors.There was an emperor and an Imperial Diet but by the 17th
century they were powerless and totally ceremonial.Power rested with the individual rulers of
the many small states.

Anthony Jacob Henckel’s family lived in the state of Hesse-Nassau,
one of the many Hessian states north of the Main River. Anthony Jacob’s mother
was from a town in Hesse-Darmstadt, which lay just east of Nassau and he
attended Giessen University also in Hesse Darmstadt but only about 20 miles
from his home. Rolling hills and
fertile fields and occasional woodlands characterize this region of the
Rhineland.

Most
of Henckel’s adult life in the Rhineland was spent in the Palatinate, a state about
90 miles south of Nassau. The Palatinate
straddled the Rhine, with a portion on west bank, north of Alsace and a portion
on the east bank, most of it south of the Neckar River. The terrain was much like Hesse, but just far
enough south that vineyards were a feature seldom found further north. The
ruler of the Palatinate was one of the seven Electors of the Holy Roman Empire
and had his seat at Heidelberg, a city on the Neckar. The area of the Palatinate south of
Heidelberg is known as the Kraichgau region, after the Kraichbach, a small
river which flows north into the Rhine upstream from Mannheim, which is
situated at the mouth of the Neckar.
Most of parishes Henckel served were no more than 20 miles from
Heidelberg.

By
the last quarter of the 17th century a number of fairly strong
nation states had emerged on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire. France to the west had finally been unified under
a strong monarchy, with highly centralized government, England had been unified
for some time and was rapidly becoming a major commercial power, and sea
power. Little Holland was a strong state
with the largest commercial fleet in Europe after 1600. To the north Denmark and Sweden had emerged
as unified states under staunchly protestant monarchs. Further west and south of France, Spain was
united, and wealthy, with a huge colonial empire in America. Spain was closely allied dynastically with the
Hapsburg dynasty of Austria, which also controlled Bohemia. Austria and Bohemia were part of the Holy
Roman Empire but were larger than most other German states and exerted power
and influence beyond the borders of the Empire. Austria was gaining strength as
they pushed the Turks out of Hungary and establishing control there as well. All of these states had a growing middle
class, and were able to keep up with developing military technology because of
their wealth and resources. However, The
German speaking areas of the Rhineland lagged behind because the political and
social structures were still basically feudal and completely decentralized.
With strong powers on the periphery any attempt by a German leader, or outside
power to try to unify any part of the area was immediately squashed by an
alliance of those who felt threatened by any one ruler or country controlling
central Europe. This left the small states of central Europe a vulnerable power
vacuum and a frequent battle ground for the neighboring states.

Political
and Military situation regarding the period from 1668-1717:

After
the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the 30 Years War, France emerged as a
major power, having helped prevent the Hapsburgs of Austria from establishing
control over central Europe, by allying with the Protestant States of Holy
Roman Empire, who were threatened by the effort of the Hapsburg to consolidate
their power and reestablish Catholic dominancy over the entire region. The Hapsburg had to accept the fact that Holy
Roman Empire would be religiously divided between Catholic, Lutheran and
Reformed faiths. Most of the Rhineland
states were confirmed Lutheran or Reformed, even some that were ruled by
Bishops. Catholicism remained the
official church in Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia and several cities. Wars
henceforth would no longer be about religious but about dynastic and national
power, land and wealth.

Under
Louis XIV, who took personal control in 1661, France became the major threat to
the German states. His goal was to extended the borders of France all the way
to the Rhine by taking Lorraine and Alsace to the east and acquiring Belgium and Luxemburg (ruled by the Spanish Hapsburgs)
to the north. The Protestant Dutch stood in his way. So he went to war with Spain and Holland-
usually called the Dutch War 1672-1679. Louis
failed to get Belgium but the French began to take Alsace bit by bit- finally
took free city of Strasbourg on the Rhine, 1681.

In
1688 Louis XIV went to war with Spain over a claim to the Spanish Netherlands
(Belgium), but since the Austrian Hapsburg were allied to Spain, much of the
war was fought in the Rhineland. Louis
also laid claim to the titles and land of the Elector of the Palatinate because
the Elector’s mother had been a cousin of Louis. The small German states were relatively
defenseless as the French invaded in the Fall of 1688. Heidelberg was seized
and the palace burned. Many villages and towns of the Kraichgau region were also
pillaged and burned in 1689-90. By 1689 another alliance (League of Augsburg) of
European powers was at war with France.

Anthony
Jacob Henckel had probably just completed his first year at the University when
the French invaded. Three years into the
War Henckel was assigned a parish in the heart of the Kraichgau region, not far
from Heidelberg. The war continued for another six years, as most of the German
states, the Austrian Hapsburgs, the English and Dutch fought the French. Battles were fought in Italy, Spain, Belgium,
even North America and the Caribbean but the Rhineland was a main arena of the
struggle because of its location. The French were checked by 1697 but got to
keep Alsace and Lorraine, France now extended all the way to the Rhine.

Peace
last four years. Louis had been stopped
but he was not giving up. In 1700 the last male Spanish Hapsburg died and Louis
claimed the throne of Spain for his grandson, whose mother was a Spanish
princess. None of the other European
powers wanted a super state of Spain and France united and so by 1701 a new war
of “Spanish Succession” ensued and lasted until 1714. Again much of it fought
in the Rhineland, with vast French armies crossing the Rhine into the
Palatinate as they moved to fight Austrians, Prussians, and Hannoverians, the
British and the Dutch.

The
war was a disaster for the Palatinate, especially the Kraichgau region, for
several reasons.

They had no time to recover from the previous war
before a new wave of French armies marched through creating havoc and
destruction again. Crops were destroyed
by large armies marching across fields. Livestock and grain was confiscated to
feed the armies. Trade and commerce
were at a standstill and because of the large numbers of people moving about;
soldiers, their suppliers and camp followers and malnourished refugees fleeing,
it created the perfect conditions for famine and epidemics of deadly diseases. Arriving at his first pastorate at
Eschelbronn in the midst of war in 1692, Henckel remained in the Kraichgau
region approximately 25 years. In that
time he saw only seven years of peace.
As the pastor of a congregation he must have had to make some pretty
difficult choices when an army was approaching his village and people were
fleeing. Should he and his family go
with his parishioners? Or should he send his wife and children away but stay to
try and protect the church and help those who could not leave? How much do you
cooperate with the occupying forces? He definitely
served in very trying times and no doubt faces some very difficult choices.

The Economic and Social Situation 1668-1717

The
30 Years War left much of the Rhineland and central Germany with one third
fewer people in 1648 than had been there when the war began in 1618. Between famine, plague, high infant mortality
and flight to other regions, the population situation was dire. The rulers were desperate to get people to
till the land, craftsmen and skilled workers to help rebuild, merchants and
tradesmen to bring in goods and money. So
they encouraged immigration from areas that had not been so devastated. Many of those who began to move into the
Rhineland from 1650 on through the 1670s were from Switzerland, which had not participated
in or suffered the losses from the war, and was in fact running out of room for
it growing population. Most were from
the large Reform Cantons of Bern and Zurich and included Anabaptists who were being
persecuted. All welcomed the chance to
leave and find new homes in the more tolerant Rhineland.

The
majority of inhabitants were still peasants leading an agrarian way of
life. They lived in villages and worked
the surrounding land, and had rights to graze their cattle and sheep in common
pastures and gather wood from woodlands, all of which were actually owned by an
overlord- either a high ranking noblemen who might live in a far off city or
country estate, and left management to a stewart or more often, a local baron
of lesser rank (Freiherr), with rights to collect fees, rents and a share of
the crops as well as labor from his tenants. Common folks were the lowest class in what was
still a feudal social hierarchy. The loss of population in the 30 Years War did
give the commoners some leverage, according to some historians, because labor
was scarce and they might find a better deal if they moved or threatened to
move. It did not always work that way,
moving was a risk many were not willing to take and the influx of immigrants
from places like Switzerland soon began to take care of the labor shortage
because many of them were willing to work for the landlords without making any
kind of agreements.

Compared
to neighboring countries to the west there was virtually no urban or commercial
middle class in the Rhineland states. The economy was slow to change and grow
because with no central government there was no centralized currency or
economic policies. Each small state had
its own taxes, tariffs and regulations.
Just traveling down the Rhine from Basel Switzerland to Rotterdam a
person had to pay customs and tariffs to at least 30 different political
units. Taxes were exorbitantly high,
because the local rulers needed money to finance their fanciful attempt to keep
up with the grandeur of the great rulers like Louis XIV of France or the
Hapsburgs, who had lots of money to spend.
Warfare was also costly. It brought not only higher taxes but disrupted
commerce and hindered the basic work of producing enough food to feed the
people.

The
only real changes were ones that created distress for the common folks. One
such change that began toward the end of the 17th century as the
result of increased free labor was what the British called “Enclosure”. Always in need of money, landlords began to
refuse to renew leases on tillable land and simply took direct control,
consolidating plots to grow grain for the market, using hired labor, often
immigrants from Switzerland. Even more common was planting vineyards and so
folks who were once self-sufficient peasants became laborers in the vineyards
and wine producing business. In other
cases landlords enclosed the common lands and put beef cattle or sheep there,
or the landlord might decide to cut the woodland for timber, rather than let it
be for the villagers’ needs. Unable to
grow their own food, peasants had to work as laborers in order to buy food. This
trend was only beginning during life of Henckel but was in full swing by the middle
of the 18th century and became a major cause of immigration from the
peak year of 1749 onward. However, enclosure
was having an impact on the peasant villages from the beginning in the 18th
century as more and more sank into poverty.
Poor parishioners have trouble supporting their church and pastor.

On top of the constant war and
economic problems the weather became a problem. For much of the 16th
and 17th century the climate of northern Europe was cooling down, in
what is sometimes called the “Little Ice Age.”
We know this because the line above which wheat will not grow continued
to move south. Also the line where the North
Atlantic a and rivers froze during the winter also began to move southward. In
the 1500s wheat grew in Scandinavia, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but the
beginning of the 1700s it no longer grew in Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and
was frequently failing to grow well in the northern German and Baltic regions. From
about 1000 AD to late 1400s Norsemen settled Iceland and Greenland- by 1500
they could no longer get to Greenland and could only get to Iceland a few
months in summer. Colder winters led to decreased production even where wheat and
barley still grew. Colder, longer
winters also meant farmers had to lay up more hay and fodder for livestock at
the same time conditions for growing it grew worse. So it meant a reduction in
livestock, which of course meant less milk, cheese and meat. The situation reach crisis proportion in the
winter of 1708-1709- when temperature dropped well below freezing in December
and never rose above freezing for three months. This virtually wiped out the
winter grain crops, there was enormous loss of livestock because of lack of
food for animals and they could not even get water with everything frozen. Many were slaughtered to feed the people. Rivers and lakes froze, so there was no
fishing or commerce by boat. There were stories of birds freezing to death in
flight and dropping from the sky. One of the hardest hit areas was the
Kraichgau because of the conditions already created by seven years of war.

This
disaster led to the first great emigration of Germans to America. It has been estimated that over 30, 000
refugees fled the Rhineland to Holland and England when word spread that the
British were willing to allow some desperate German refugees go to the British
colonies in America. They wound up in
camps in Holland and England and about eight to nine thousand were eventually
allowed to go to New Amsterdam in 1710.
A few managed to go to Penns colony in Pennsylvania. Many of those who did get to New York or
Pennsylvania came from the Kraichgau region, including the family of Jost
Heydt, from the village of Bonfeld, who is later known for establishing one of
the first settlements of Germans in the Shenandoah Valley.

The
next several years also saw a continuation of extreme cold and bad weather,
resulting in poor crops and continued distress, but the continuation of the war
made emigration difficult and it was not until a few years after the end of the
War of Spanish Succession with the Peace of Utrecht in 1714, that there was
another round of emigration from the Kraichgau to America in 1717. This time
the Henckel family was among those leaving.

Not
only was pastor Henckel assigned to one of the most war torn regions of the
Rhineland, he also was assigned to some of the most distressed and impoverished
parishes in the Rhineland and local pastors depended up their parishioners for
support. With a growing family,
providing for their safety and welfare had to have been a major concern for him
and his wife. They lost a child in 1706 and two more in 1708. The distress
caused by war and the extremes of weather had to have played a role in his
decision to leave his homeland.

The Religious Situation in the Period from 1668-1717

There were some major changes
and tensions in the religious climate of late 17th and early 18th
century Germany and as a clergyman Anthony Jacob Henckel would have been
affected by what was happening in the realm of religion. The real issue was no longer sectarian
rivalry. That had pretty well been buried with the 30 Years War. Attempts to impose religion by force had only
brought several generations of war and misery and it was finally acknowledged
that Western European Christendom was permanently divided with several
different versions of the faith.
However, there was no concept of separation of Church and State. In the
Holy Roman Empire, each political unit had to have an official Church, usually
reflecting the faith of ruler and the majority of the populace. You had Catholic states in Austria, Bavaria,
Bohemia, and the far western area around Luxembourg, which was under Austrian
control. You had Lutheran states in northern and eastern regions and the
Rhineland. The Calvinist Reformed Church
was no longer limited to several Swiss cantons but was now also the official
church in several Rhineland provinces and in Holland. By the late 1600s Swiss
Anabaptists had also become a significant group in the Rhineland. In the Palatinate the Reform Church had been
the established church from early 1600s and that was reinforced by the settling
of many Swiss immigrants from the Reform cantons of Bern and Zurich after 1660,
but several areas of the Kraichgau were heavily Lutheran. There were also a
smattering of Catholics in the Palatinate and by the late 1600s all three
faiths often shared the only church building in the village or town. Swiss Anabaptists
refugees were tolerated as long as they worshipped in their homes and did not
try to convert anyone. Calvinism had
spread into France, where its adherents were called Huguenots and had been
granted rights by the king in 1598 to have their own churches and worship as
they pleased. Calvinism had gotten so
strong in France that Louis XIV considered the Huguenots subversive and began
to pressure them to leave and finally revoked the Edict that granted them
rights and protection in 1685. His actions were inspired more by political than
religious reasons and even the Pope considered his actions unwise. Most of the Huguenots, were middle class, in
the professional and business community, fled to Holland, England or to
Brandenburg Prussia. Only a few went to the Rhineland where economic prospects
were poor.

What
was the main religious issue for pastor Henckel’s during his time in the
Kraichgau? By the late 17th
Century Lutheranism had been the accepted religion in many parts of the German
speaking world for 150 years but many things had changed in Europe since the
days of Martin Luther. When Luther first
broke from the Catholic Church, European were just beginning to explore the New
World and make contact with the Far East.
150 years later Europeans were settling in the New World and enjoying
many new products from both America and Asia as trade and commerce created
great wealth in maritime cities like London and Amsterdam. They had come in
contact with other religions and highly sophisticated cultures in India and
China, which many people admired and studied. When Luther first broke from the Church,
Copernicus and Galileo had not yet published their amazing new scientific
theories and discoveries. But by the
late 17th century, knowledge of other cultures and new scientific
ideas were changing the way people thought about the world and a new more
empirical way of thinking was emerging.
DesCartes published his essay on “Reason” in 1648, exploring how we know
what we know. He accepted the fact that the human mind can use reason to
understand itself and the physical world.
To DesCartes, Mathematics, not theology was the only certainty, because
it could be proven. He was reflecting
the thinking of many others like Francis Bacon a generation earlier or Hobbes in
England who were beginning to question whether quarreling and fighting over the
fine points of theology, such as whether the communion wafer and wine was truly
the body and blood of Christ or just a spiritual reenactment of his sacrifice,
or if the Holy Ghost was co-equal with the father and son, were really worth
all the bloodshed and pain it had brought the world. Out of this new way of thinking there grew up
a movement that emphasized development of personal spirituality with emphasis
on living a Christian life, not just believing certain specific doctrines. The
world had changed and some thought that the church needed to address the new
concerns and not fight the old battles.
Since this movement in central Europe was based on the thinking of a
group of Lutheran theologians it is usually referred to as German Pietism.

The
man recognized as founder of German Pietism was Philipp Jakob Spener
(1638-1705). Born into a Lutheran family
in Alsace, in 1638, he studied at University of Strasbourg, a center of
Lutheran scholarship in the 1650s, and became a pastor in a major Lutheran
Church in Frankfurt. Spener was appalled
at the lack of real spiritual feeling and moral behavior he found among the
Lutheran clergy and laity as well. The
clergy and scholars still seemed to focus more on the old fight with Catholics
over fine points of doctrine than with what it means to really live a Christian
life. Spener began to hold devotional meetings, Bible study sessions and
increased educational lessons for the children.
He was not questioning any of the doctrines or the theology of
Lutheranism, but the practices. He
published a book Pia Desideria (Spiritual
Longings) in 1675 and it quickly became popular and well-known in Lutheran
circles, especially among the scholars in the Lutheran universities, such as
Tubingen, Marburg and Giessen. So by the time Henckel matriculated at Giessen
the ideas of Spener were already being discussed and debated in the academic
and clerical community. In 1686 Spener
was appointed to position as chaplain of the Court of the Duke of Saxony in
Dresden, probably the most desireable and prestigious position in the Lutheran
Church. It was the mother church- Duke
Frederick of Saxony was the first German prince to adopt Luther’s new faith in
1522 and was Luther’s protector. Saxony
was also one of the wealthier German states. As Spener became more and more
well-known through additional publications, he began to be criticized by more
traditional Lutherans particularly the theologians at the University of
Leipzig, who were afraid his teaching would lead to questioning of doctrines
and not just practices. He seemed dangerously close to espousing some of the
ideas of Calvin or even the Anabaptists. They considered him a troublesome rebel and
this led to serious debate and tension in the church. Spener eventually had a falling out with the
Duke of Saxony, because Spener criticized the Duke for his drunkenness and lewd
behavior, but was welcomed by a new patron, the Elector of Brandenburg, a man
who was emerging as an important figure in German affairs. Spener moved to Berlin, hardly more than a
small garrison town, but rapidly becoming the capital of what would eventually
be the state of Brandenburg-Prussia. Spener was able to introduce some of his ideas
in the Lutheran Churches of Brandenburg and Prussia and even established a new
university at Halle, before his death in 1705, but in the rest of the Lutheran
churches his ideas took longer to take hold. Pietism did eventually lead to
some reforms in the broader Lutheran Church by the middle of the 18th
century. More education for the children
with official confirmation classes were introduced. Greater participation and governance of the
local congregation by the laity was introduced and there was more emphasis in
sermons on finding personal spiritual fulfillment through kindness, charity and
simple piety, rather than through mastering complex theological concepts.

It
took a while for the reforms to be accepted because conservative elements
feared change and tried to prevent it and others saw change as the only way to
prevent the church from losing its appeal among the common people. That debate and dialogue began about the time
Henckel entered the University and was still going on when he left for America
in 1717. Depending on the views of his superiors, a pastor’s views probably
determined if he got good reviews, got promotions, or got the nice choice
parishes or the difficult ones. Some of
that tension probably entered into the life of Anthony Jacob Henckel. Several websites regarding Henckel refer to efforts
by the Catholics to suppress the Lutherans as the impetus for him to
immigrate. There is only one problem
with that version. He lived in a Protestant state, which had a very small
Catholic minority. The Elector at that time, Johann Wilhelm, was Catholic but
he reaffirmed religious toleration established in 1648 and made no attempt to
alter the arrangement, but there were pressures and tensions within the
Lutheran Church that could have been a factor in his decision to leave and the
authors of the Henckel genealogy hinted that he may have had some differences
with the patrons and overlords of the church. I have no idea where Pastor Henckel stood in
regard to the Pietist movement but there is no way he would have been able to
avoid it from the days he was studying at Giessen to the end of his life. It
was a huge issue for all Lutheran clergy.

Did
the religious situation compel him to immigrate? It may have figured in his decision but I
have also given you at least four other good reasons why he along with several
thousand other people from the Rhineland decided to make that long treacherous
trip to America in the early 18th century to escape the turmoil and
tribulations that was their world. Rather
than be puzzled about why he left- ask yourself the question—What reasons did
he have for staying?

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